Prince Harry’s lawsuit against the British government has cost taxpayers nearly $650,000, although a lawyer said Newsweek He can pay for most of it himself, plus his own expenses.
The Duke of Sussex has twice sued the Home Office over its decision to remove his police protection team and lost the case in February. His team indicated they would appeal.
Freedom of Information Request by The Daily Telegraph revealed that British taxpayers have so far paid 514,000 pounds, which is less than $650,000.
However, unless Harry wins his appeal, it’s the public, not the royals, who will ultimately foot most of the bill — and he’ll have his own fees on top — leaving a final price tag of £1-million. can exceed the mark of .
Mark Stephens of UK law firm Howard Kennedy said: Newsweek that Harry’s own costs “could be a bit higher because he would have to gather evidence, so it would be over a million in total.
“It’s fair to say that a lot of his cases have been done on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis, so the lawyers thought they were strong enough that he didn’t have to cough up. I think it’s a is one of the few cases that doesn’t fall into this category because you can’t do court reviews on ‘no win, no fee’.
“I think the fact that they’re appealing is an indication that the counsel on their team and the legal team thought there was a flaw in the law, otherwise they would have shut it down. So they obviously have their It’s a great opportunity to pass up and it would be humiliating to turn it down.”
If the prince wins the appeal, British taxpayers will have to pay the costs, although if he loses, he could add a little extra to his bill through the appeals process.
The next step is for the Court of Appeal to decide whether to allow him to appeal, a process which Stephens said would cost him “probably £25,000” if he loses.
Stephens added that if he was granted permission, but ultimately failed after a full hearing, it could rise to “perhaps another £100,000”.
“It’s not going to be much because it’s a paper-based exercise. Most of the costs are spent in gathering the original papers. After the first instance hearing, all you’re doing is arguing the case. Whether there is a point of law or not where the judge has fallen into error and therefore there is no collection of evidence, that is at the first stage.”
If Harry wins, he finds himself out of picking up the tab and also forces the government to reconsider its decision to remove him from their police team, though it’s possible they’ll use a different process. They will make the same decision while doing it.
For example, if it was said that they should have given Harry a better chance to present his case, they could have simply given him that chance before deciding that he hadn’t changed his mind.
Harry already faces the prospect of cutting a big check to a sworn tabloid foe in another case, a libel suit against him. Mail on Sunday That he fell.
gave Mail reported that his legal bill in the case is estimated to be in the region of £750,000, which is closer to $950,000.
That means that in total, he could take more than $2 million dollars in damages in both cases. In comparison, he won a case against Mirror Group Newspapers over landmark phone hacking allegations and was awarded just over £140,000 in damages.
The media company settled some remaining claims and expenses for a further, undisclosed amount, but there is nothing to indicate that any net benefit will offset the costs in the other two cases.
So there are many reasons for Harry to hope against hope that he will win his appeal against the government.
Jack is Royston NewsweekLondon-based chief royal correspondent. You can find him on X, first on Twitter, at @jack_royston And read his stories of Newsweek The Royals’ Facebook page.
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